In case of a power outage, quick restoration of the power is highly desirable to the residential and commercial customers. Some power outages are limited to a single home or building, while others affect an entire neighborhood. Some outages may even span large sections of a town or more than one towns. For the restoration effect to commence as soon as possible, the utility company supplying electricity to the affected customer must be notified immediately after the loss of power. In addition, if the utility company is aware of the scope of the outage it can efficiently allocate the resources such as service personnel and/or equipment needed for a timely restoration.
Often, however, the notification of the power outage is provided by the customer, e.g., by a phone call to the utility's service center. Some customers may call within a few minutes; others may wait for several minutes or up to one or two hours before notifying; and some customers may not call the utility company at all. Thus, the utility company may not become aware of a power outage substantially in real time. Moreover, because all affected customers in a certain geographic area may not provide notification, the utility company may also not become aware of the geographic scope of the outage until the utility's service personnel reach a location where the outage occurred.
Some modern devices, such as a smart electricity meter, can automatically send an application-level message indicating a loss of power to the utility company, via a communication network, immediately (e.g., within a few seconds) after detecting the loss of power. Circuitry required for the transmission of the message typically receives power from a supply capacitor in the meter that retains charge for a few milliseconds after the power is lost. Thus, the utility company can potentially receive notifications from all affected customers within a few seconds after the power outage. However, sending an application message can take up to a few seconds, and the smart meter may not remain operational for a duration that long as the charge of the supply capacitor dissipates. Therefore, the messages from some smart meters may not be delivered to the utility company, and, as described above, the utility company may not be informed of the scope of the outage. Therefore there exists a need for improved systems and methods for power-outage notification and analysis.